A crowd-funding campaign has raised thousands of dollars for a homeless man who said he pulled nails from the arms and faces of injured children minutes after the suicide bombing at Manchester Arena Monday night.
According to Britain’s ITV News, Stephen Jones was sleeping near Manchester Arena Monday night when a suicide bomber detonated an improvised device leaving at least 22 dead, many of whom were children, and injuring scores more following a performance by singer Ariana Grande.
Jones told the news station he originally thought the sound of the explosion was the result of fireworks, until he realized what was happening.
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“It’s just instinct to go and help, if someone needed your help,” Jones said. “It was children and it was a lot of children with blood all over them and crying and screaming.”
Police say Salman Abedi, 22, carried out the attack just after 10:30 p.m. causing widespread panic and chaos sending concert-goers running and screaming from the arena.
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“We were having to pull nails out of their arms and a couple out of this little girl’s face,” Jones recalled of the bombing aftermath.
Jones went on to explain to ITV News that he assisted a woman who suffered extensive cuts and “we thought she was just going to bleed right out.”
“It had to be done, you had to help, if I didn’t help I wouldn’t be able to live with myself for walking away and leaving kids like that,” Jones said.
The British news station shared its interview with Jones on social media and it has been shared over 72,000 times.
READ MORE: Manchester Arena explosion: 8-year-old girl among 22 bombing victims
A donation page was set up to raise money to help get the man a place to stay.
“Steve, a young man living on the streets of Manchester selflessly ran towards the sounds of terror last night to help people wounded in the horrific attack at Manchester Arena,” reads a description on the crowd-funding page. “He said in an interview that he would like to think that people would help him if he needed it… so let’s do just that!”
As of Wednesday morning, over £21,000 (C$36,500) had been raised.
The terrorism threat level in the U.K. has been upgraded to “critical,” following what British Prime Minister called “appalling, sickening cowardice” act of terror.
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